Harry Did What?

One Direction Fans Wage #TwitterWar Against GQ

Tweens struck back at British GQ’s September cover story on the boy band. Erin Cunningham on the ridiculousness that ensued.

On July 29, British GQ announced its September issue stars via Twitter: individual magazine covers for each member of One Direction.

While the magazine’s editors knew the obvious fan girl madness such covers would provoke—the magazine tweeted, “Please bear with us, as @OneDirection’s GQ covers are putting the site under a fair amount of pressure #GQ1D”—they seemed unprepared for the international Twitter frenzy the covers of Harry, Liam, Niall, Zayn, and Louis would cause.

Cue an Internet war: self-proclaimed “#Directioner” fans attacking American GQ and its editors—read, the wrong magazine—with wild and angry tweets over the magazine’s covers and interview. Between death threats and profanity, the fans went to Twitter extremes to vent their fury at a magazine that had no relationship to or control over its British counterpart’s cover.

I HATE GQ MOTHERFUCKING FUCKERS FUCK YOU ALL HOW DISRESPECTFUL WAS THAT GO DIE IN A HOLE

If fans were furious at “wrong” information the magazine published about the band members, they probably should have checked who they were tweeting at. Finally, after countless tweets, the crazed tweens caught on to their mistake and started attacking the British edition of GQ.

But why the rage? Why the anger? Shouldn’t fans be ecstatic that the band was featured on the cover of a magazine, let alone a September issue? From Twitter, it’s understood that the revolt started over an interview portraying Harry as a womanizer—highlighting the magazine’s interest in his sexual “number”—and Louis, Zayn, and Niall as pretentious, stupid, and not caring about the fans, respectively. Despite the Twitter war, both versions of GQresponded humorously—because really, how could you not laugh at a situation like this?

The best part? One Direction fan girl responses to being noticed by GQ, and the new (self-proclaimed, of course) “Internet celebrities” the sensation has created.